Modern biotechnology is a direction designed to find ways of industrial application of biological agents and processes. This is a complex multidisciplinary field, including microbiological synthesis, genetic, protein and cell engineering, engineering enzymology.

Biotechnology is mainly based on the use of microorganisms. Therefore, the knowledge accumulated by microbiology about the diversity of the world, about the structure, genetics, physiology, variability, ecology of microbes creates a scientific basis for the development of many biotechnological industries. Traditional raw materials for various branches of the chemical and processing industries (oil and gas) are depleted, and this will lead to the fact that biomass resources will be increasingly used.

In addition to new methods for producing chemicals from biomass, bio-technology also gives us more efficient and industrial catalysts for chemical interconversions.

A promising area for further development is the production of valuable substances from plants, such as terpenes and alkaloids used in the manufacture of drugs; currently 25 % of all medicines are made from plants. Using animal cells, the production of viruses for vaccines is possible. In the long term, these are hepatitis A, hepatitis B, herpes type 1 viruses, herpes type 2 viruses, as well as viruses that cause colds, some forms of cancer and dental caries.